5.31.2013

Guest Blogger Carter Gillies on Food and Morality

This guest post by ceramic artist and blogger Carter Gillies is in response to my recent post Way Outback: Bush Tucker. To read more of Carter's thoughtful writings follow his blog at http://cartergilliespottery.wordpress.com
Yeah, the subject of food and morality is not always straight forward. I think a lot of what you say has merit. This passage touched on several important points:

"After living overseas in countries that struggle with hunger and food distribution I have come to understand that the ability to make a "moral" choice to abstain from a food source only comes when there is an overwhelming abundance of food in that society. Hungry people don't have the luxury of abstaining from a food source that might make up more than 50% of their natural diet. I am not knocking vegetarians but I am saying that deeply held beliefs are often dictated more by our physical and cultural landscapes then the intrinsic morality of the issue."

Morality and what counts as food are always culturally dictated. Many themes overlap across cultures. Food sources, food preparation, food distribution, food practices are all part of a system, and growing up within that system the choices make sense. The same with traditional morality, for the most part.

So its possible that circumstance has a great influence on these things, and even though we can talk of 'food' in general, and 'morality' in general, they are not really general things. They are embodied realities. Sounds like I'm a relativist here. But sometimes the world throws up unfamiliar and uncertain circumstances, and the old trusted ways no longer apply. What do we do then, when the rules are broken?

You say that "hungry people don't have the luxury of abstaining from a food source" and that moral choice seems to come "when there is an overwhelming abundance of food in that society". Survivors of a plane crash end up eating the passengers who died, poor people here in the US forage in dumpsters and take whatever hand outs they can get. Privation does seem to shrug off the normal sensibilities.....

But as a vegetarian myself, I'd like to flip the focus of the scenario you have laid out and suggest that Morality and food ARE intimately linked, and that in a culture of abundance (as in the US) there is a real moral issue that some folks are going hungry at all. Poverty is a stain on our society, and we are not living up to our moral responsibilities by sweeping the issue under the carpet. Also, the food industry itself is engaged in practices that have moral components. The idea of sustainability is entirely moral. I'd also suggest that where there is such abundance of nutritional options, exploiting industries based on taking lives needs to be examined. Its no longer necessary to kill for our supper, and yet we only get meat on the table when something has died. The death was not necessary in the same way it might have been 100 or even 50 years ago. Is it a moral question that lives are taken when they could have been spared? Do we even need to ask this question when human lives are at stake? If our culture fails to extend basic morality to its animals is that not an indictment of our own morality? Cultures that NEED to hunt for food almost always have the respect for its food source that links into a system of morality. Are the traditions of meat eating in our first world culture vestiges of a hunting society that had no other choice? Are we simply ignoring the moral questions that were embedded in the small scale society practices now that we've turned food gathering into a large scale commercial venture? Do we accept death as the price of appeasing our taste buds?

The difficulty is that in the modern world there are consequences to our actions that are far reaching and hugely impactful. Tradition and morality sometimes need a wake up call to get on the same page as society is traveling. The pace of cultural change far outstrips what we are able to make sense of as a society. Our morality often lags behind and has to play catch up. We don't have the luxury these days of the slow accretion and evolution of traditional responses. Atom bombs, pollution, and other modern manifestations have made things more urgent.So I'm not appealing to 'inherent' morality. I'm not appealing to traditional morality. I'm just suggesting that the game has changed so much that we need to think differently. We need to start thinking more in moral terms how our actions square with the world today, and what that will get us for the future. A diet of meat was a luxury throughout most of human evolution. Putting meat on a family's table didn't always impact those outside the home itself. In a global world the resources spent raising a pound of beef are so hugely disproportionate to the amount of vegetable protein that could have been grown, not to mention the ills of the meat industry itself, how is meat eating not a profligate waste of resources? With so much hunger throughout the world?

Morality always explains the difference between 'is' and 'ought'. Simply because the way we do things currently includes meat eating doesn't mean it reflects what ought to be the case. The status quo can be used to rationalize every evil society has invented (slavery, segregation, gender inequity.....) The reasons that once justified aiming our resources at putting meat on the table are long gone in the US (for the most part). We have to think differently now. We have to think of scarcity and responsibility. We have to think of long term consequences.

Morality may not matter if we don't have a choice. If we DO have a choice, then it is often a moral one which direction we take. I might be a cannibal up on that Andes mountaintop, but in downtown Athens Ga that won't cut it. Maybe we will end up in some future world where we eat 'Soilent Green'..... If we blow it now, we may not have a choice. Our children's children's children may be forced to subsist on processed human body parts...... Can we say that looking ahead and with the possibility of side stepping that future that its NOT a moral issue facing us here and now?

Carter is having a sale in the Athens, GA area this weekend. If you are in the area stop by and support him.

3 comments:

I was particularly engaged with this passage. "Our morality often lags behind and has to play catch up. We don't have the luxury these days of the slow accretion and evolution of traditional responses. Atom bombs, pollution, and other modern manifestations have made things more urgent." I like the idea that morality works in a time warp and generally has to catch up with changes in our physical realm. This is interesting to me because if you ask most people they will probably say their morality is unchanging at the exact same time it is changing based on their experience.

"Morality always explains the difference between 'is' and 'ought'. Simply because the way we do things currently includes meat eating doesn't mean it reflects what ought to be the case. The status quo can be used to rationalize every evil society has invented (slavery, segregation, gender inequity.....) The reasons that once justified aiming our resources at putting meat on the table are long gone in the US (for the most part). We have to think differently now. We have to think of scarcity and responsibility. We have to think of long term consequences. "

I'm also interested in your questioning of the "ought"ness of eating meat. This seems to be an issue of body type, social conditioning, personal choice. It also is something that doctors/researchers highly disagree on. I am a meat eater but my reasons for eating meat have changed through out my life. They are evolving as I age. As a child I ate what ever my parents fed me, as a teenager I consciously ate protein to meet the high intake needs of my athletic lifestyle, as a young adult I ate less meat because I was poor and couldn't afford it. My most recent evolution has been to consciously eat more meat as part of a high protein low wheat diet. I started this most recent diet choice to combat blood sugar/sugar cravings. The remarkable thing is that within weeks of stopping wheat my life-long cravings for sugar/sweet foods went away. Meat is actually a balancing agent in my diet that has proven to be a healthy anchor for me. So regardless of the morality I feel better on a daily basis on a high protein low wheat carb diet. I know it sounds selfish but I'm not ready to give that up after searching for this type of health for many decades.

Consciously choosing to eat meat is an interesting predicament in the United States at the moment. Factory farming, and really any meat farming (as you pointed out about water/resource consumption) is not only inefficient but can be highly toxic for the consumer and the environment. So now my thought process is about choosing a source of meat this is compassionate to the animal, environment, my health and my wallet. This is possible but the surprising thing is that meeting those requirements is very very expensive. I'm based in Santa Cruz, CA when I'm not traveling and it can been untenable on an artist/educator income to meet those needs. That in and off itself is a reflection of a broken system. Thankfully we have a local farm movement where we can get all types of vegetable and meat that is grown with compassion.

Another angle on the morality issue for me is my spiritual practice. I have been meditating for many years in a Zen Buddhist lineage. The precepts are very clear. "A student of the Buddha does not kill." period. This relates to sentient beings so animals, humans, insect, etc. I have had discussions about my desire to eat meat with priests as well as read books about it. Their take was interesting. They didn't tell me not to eat meat. What they said was that when I choose to eat an animal I was literally choosing to consume all of that animals Karma. In effect meat eating raises the Karmic intake of the individual exponentially. Although I am devout in my practice I am not sure how much I understand how that plays out in my daily life. Thinking about Karma is something that I can trap myself with so I try not to analyze too much. I do however accept their explanation as a basic truth. If I eat meat I have to accept their are Karmic consequences.

So again I come back to how do I choose to eat meat but do it with compassion for the animal, environment, my health and my wallet. I haven't solidified a perfect method so the choice to eat meat is still evolving for me. After going hunting here I have started to think more about how hunting fits into this whole equation. I believe if practiced correctly hunting can allow a much higher quality of life (until the actual death of course) for the animal. The only problem is that I am generally antigun. I have never been anti-hunting but I am definitely anti handgun.

This brings up a good point about the current state of morality in the U.S. Our society is free enough to practice a religion, or choose not too, to support liberal or conservative politics, or choose not too, to buy 10 hand guns, or choose not too, to embrace capitalism's promise that hard work equals success, or choose not too. We have so many options but making each choice often leads to another more complex choice. I know this is the nature of life and has been for a long time. What I am getting at is that a life with so many choices can feel groundless or at least highly uncertain if you don't have some guide for personal behavior. What grounds me is the desire not to hurt others. I don't think I am along in this. I think the majority of our society has become aware enough spiritually and emotionally to be compassionate. I believe people if given the choice will decide to stick to their own beliefs while at the same time trying not to hurt those around them. This might be pie-in-the-sky optimism but I believe our society is growing in its awareness of other peoples rights and desires. This can be seen in a growing acceptance of marriage equality, attempts at gender equality, etc. We are by no means perfect but we are getting more open. This open mindedness if given enough time will change into an even greater freedom.

Wow! Great post Carter! You have touched on many things that make up my own choice to be vegan. It may be a "luxury" for me to be vegan, but the truth is that many of us have that luxury. It is probably a much easier/accessible option for most people than the local food movement. The morality to abstain from meat touches on many issues, and taking personal responsibility for what we purchase is a powerful tool.

(on a personal note- Ben: I sometimes follow a wheat-free diet, for many of the same reasons you do. I find that I also need protein to help keep me balanced. I generally use raw protein smoothie or some nuts to get that balance.)